Office building

Sorry for the absence from posting. I've been setting up my new office and just got connected to the net today. Normal posting will resume soon.

Some random observations and experiences over the past few days:

•  Core duo machines are wicked fast! My new laptop (a Dell Latitude D620) has the T2600 @ 2.16 GHz with 2 GB RAM, a 256 MB NVIDIA GPU, and a 7200 RPM SATA hard drive. This thing smokes! Oh, and it has a 9 cell battery reporting 4 hours of life (we'll see about that. A nice touch on the battery (which mounts on the front) is an integrated wrist rest. Nice touch.
• Linksys router-access point devices, which have never been particularly hard to set up (for me anyway), have gotten even easier and  faster to install since I last bought one about a year ago. They're cheaper too. I opted for a standnard "G" access point as the "N" stuff requires a PC card adaptor.
• This laptop had zero, none, nada in the way of shovelware. Nothing to remove at all. Nice. And a strong argument for buying business configurations if this is as much of a pain for you as it has been for me.
• Battery backup/UPS devices have also gotten a lot cheaper in the past year. I picked up an APC unit with eight surge protected outlets (four of which get the battery backup) for around 50 bucks that will provide plenty of time to safely disconnect should the lights go out.
• Most fluorescent lights suck. OTT-LITE full spectrum lamps do not. Pure white, uncolored light that uses almost no juice (a 13-watt bulb lights up my immediate work area very nicely.
• Adobe Acrobat Pro is freaking expensive! So is the Standard version. I had been upgrading for so long I guess I lost track of the cost of a full version. Sorry, I can thin of a number of better things to drop $500 (or $300) on. ANy recommendations on a less expensive alternative? I want to look into the ScanSoft and NitroPDF products.
• Buy good cables. Cheap cables are false economy.